The Sacred Writings of Lactantius by Lactantius

Author:Lactantius [Unbekannt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion
ISBN: 9783849621407
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2012-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI.-Of the Affections, and the Refutation of the Opinion of the Peripatetics Concerning Them; What is the Proper Use of the Affections, and What is a Bad Use of Them.

But I think that the Peripatetics did not even approach the truth, who allow that they are vices, but regulate them with moderation. For we must be free even from moderate vices; yea, rather, it ought to have been at first effected that there should be no vices. For nothing can be born vicious; 125 but if we make a bad use of the affections they become vices, if we use them well they become virtues. Then it must be shown that the causes of the affections, and not the affections themselves, must be moderated. We must not, they say, rejoice with excessive joy, but moderately and temperately. This is as though they should say that we must not run swiftly, but walk quietly. But it is possible that he who walks may err, and that he who runs may keep the right path. What if I show that there is a case in which it is vicious not only to rejoice moderately, but even in the smallest degree; and that there is another case, on the contrary, in which even to exult with transports of joy is by no means faulty? What then, I pray, will this mediocrity profit us? I ask whether they think that a wise man ought to rejoice if he sees any evil happening to his enemy; or whether he ought to curb his joy, if by the conquest of enemies, or the overthrow of a tyrant, liberty and safety have been acquired by his countrymen. 126

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